Here are a few frames I took with my Holga on Kodak T-Max while on assignment for the Peoria Journal Star.
Civil War re-enactors and a Holga
Peoria Journal Star
Canton fire chief Ernie Russell
I ended up spending most of my day in Canton, Ill. working on two assignments. A basketball tournament in the evening (posted below) and a portrait of the local fire chief earlier in the afternoon. Ernie Russell is the interim fire chief in Canton, but he was previously a fire chief in Peoria and the Illinois state fire marshal. I was trying to say “firefighter” with these photos even though Russell wasn’t dressed in a fire suit. To do this, I gelled a Nikon SB-800 red and placed it a couple feet behind him pointed downwards to create a sea of red under his feet. I lit him with a second SB-800 fired through an umbrella at 1/4th power. It was a fun shoot, and afterward Russell insisted that I stick around the firehouse to watch the end of the Auburn-Alabama football game. Russell is a really nice guy, and his personality is reflected pretty well in the second photo below.
Peoria Manual-Chicago Marshall basketball
On Friday I covered high school basketball for the first time this season. The paper sent me over to Canton, Ill. to shoot a portrait then cover Peoria Manual in the basketball tournament there. The gym where the tourney was held isn’t very well illuminated so I strobed it up. I had never strobed basketball with speedlights before coming into the game. I ended up sticking a couple Nikon SB-800s on light stands in the bleachers on each side and aimed them at the top of the key. On the stands each speedlight ended up being elevated about 10 feet above court level and were about 10 feet off the court perpendicular to the baseline. They were fired at 1/4th power at 70 mm zoom. That gave me an exposure of 1/250th of a second, f/2.8 at 400 ISO. I made it into the third quarter before I killed the batteries on one of them. Always remember to bring some extra batteries if you’re using speedlights.
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Thanksgiving at the South Side Mission
I’m not a fan of working on holidays, but it’s much more bearable when you have a cool assignment to photograph. Such was the case today as I headed down to the South Side Mission in the morning to photograph volunteers preparing meals for the needy. Later in the day, I tagged along with the Reist family as they delivered meals to some elderly folks in Peoria. It was incredible to see how grateful people were to receive one of the mission’s meals.
Rivermen-Ice Hogs hockey
I don’t cover hockey often. And by not often, I mean Sunday was the first time ever. I don’t think I have even been to a hockey game since I was in middle school. It was also the first time using the Journal Star’s strobe setup in Carver Arena. I’ve used strobes before for basketball, but hockey is entirely different. I had a decent day, but I’m looking forward to shooting more games there before the end of my internship.
